Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are medical illnesses that involve critical disturbances in eating behavior. It can cause heart and kidney problems and even death. In these situations, a person eats or refuses to eat in an attempt to satisfy a psychological need rather than a physical need. Eating disorders are often characterized by a preoccupation with food and weight. There are three types of eating disorders, which are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating, also known as compulsive over-eating, but the most two common types are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia and bulimia are also common in industrialized nations where society encourages low calorie diets and thinness. Many people believe that only females have eating disorder (myth), but approximately five to ten percent of eating disorders occur in males. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, an obsessive fear of gaining weight, and an unrealistic perception of current body weight. Anorexia can cause menstruation to stop, and often leads to bone loss, loss of skin integrity. It can stress the heart, increasing the risk of heart attacks and related heart problems. Also, some typical changes are digestive problems, extreme sensitivity to cold, mental confusion, injuries to nerves and tendons, anemia, and abnormalities of immune function, etc. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychosomatic illness today. One myth about anorexia nervosa is that “People with anorexia nervosa do not eat anything.” They generally do eat, sometimes even three meals a day. They just do not consume enough calories to maintain a healthy body weight. They may also have rituals around eating or purposely avoid eating with others, so it may seem like they do not eat at all. Bulimia nervosa (BN) is characterized by a cycle of binge eating followed…...

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...A Silent Epidemic: Eating Disorders among College Women
For Jennifer Keagan, high school was a thrill. She was one of the most popular girls in school. She was valedictorian, homecoming queen, student body president, an honor roll student, and the list goes on. She always strived for perfection. Life was easy for Jennifer. She always got what she wanted. Unfortunately, this all came to a halt when it was time for her to face an all new reality: college. Jennifer was no longer around her friends and family. She was on her own now, and realized that college wasn’t as easy as high school like she thought it would be. It was all too overwhelming for her. She became lonely and couldn’t adjust to the college lifestyle. Eventually food became her new-found friend. She would consume large amounts of food and then feel guilty about eating so much, and throw it up. This scenario became a habit for her. It consoled her. Sadly, this is a problem several college females struggle with every day. This problem is known as an eating disorder. Eating disorders arise when young college women face new challenges or changes that they just can’t handle.
Eating disorders have been increasing among college women. Every student enters college with different feelings and emotions. Some are excited and some are worried and afraid. The College Student Journal maintains that most college women “must adjust to being away from home for the first time, maintain a high level of academic achievement, and......

...Eating Disorders
“Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives” (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005 p.5). According to CaringOnline (2010) eating disorders are serious emotional and physical problems that can have life-threatening consequences for females and men. They include extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues (Eating Disorders). People define eating disorders as problems with appetite or a teens desire to be thin and attractive, yet experts claim that eating disorders represent more than that (Yancey, 1999, p. 20). According to Yancey (1999), they are subconscious ways by which some teens cope with poor self-esteem, anxiety, anger and abuse. Those who develop them are focusing on weight and food because they have not learned more effective ways of solving problems and taking control of their lives (p. 20). There are three major types of Eating Disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and Binge-eating disorder yet anorexia nervosa gets the most attention (Frissell, Harney, 1998, p. 20). Anorexia and bulimia nervosa are eating disorders affecting teenagers, and young adults endangering their lives physically and emotionally.
When diagnosing an eating disorder, professionals often refer to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), published by the American Psychiatric......

...Eating Disorders in Young Girls
Imagine flipping through magazine pictures and you see model after model with the “perfect body”, or you turn on the television only to see the same thing right in front of you. In today’s world young girls minds are molded by media all around them to think that their bodies have to fit in a cookie cutter mold of what society deems as perfect. Statistics have shown that one in ten girls will develop an eating disorder. In today’s society girls feel the pressure from main stream media and this can often end in death. As Dan Rather reported in a 48 Hours documentary, As Dan Rather reported in a 48 Hours documentary,
Women are far more likely than men to be unhappy with the way they look, and their weight is the biggest reason why. The worrying starts early. Nearly half of all 13-year-old girls say they don’t like their looks. By 18, it’s up to 80 percent. One study even found that young girls are more afraid of being fat than of nuclear war or getting cancer. Health professionals state that there are three different kinds of eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa, is where a young girl has an irrational fear of getting fat or gaining weight; in which they will starve themselves to the point of starvation or exercise to the point of exhaustion and their bodies at that point suffer extreme consequences. Anorexia nervosa can cause the organs to shut down, heart failure, and hair loss just to name a few repercussions of this disease. The......

...Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are a major problem in all the word. Thousands of teenage girls are dying, and it seems like nobody cares. Where are family and friends of these girls suffering with these problems? When we care about someone with an eating disorder, we have to help that person to get rid of that problem. The purpose of this paper is to explain why family and friends should help people with anorexia and bulimia. What family and friends should do is help solve their problem, to show they care about them, and the most important stop their death.
The first thing you as a friend or as a member of the family should do to help people with anorexia or bulimia is to give them solutions to their illness. Though there is no simple solution or cure, there are types of medical care, individual therapy, group therapy, and self-help group therapy helpful in their progress of recovery. A person with this illness seems not to notice her problem or does not care about it. You should convince her or give her your support to face it.
The second reason for helping people with eating disorders is to show you care about them. Anorexia and bulimia cause serious depressions. Victims of anorexia and bulimia feel lonely and that nobody cares about them. The person with eating disorders needs people in her world to respond to her about things other than her weight and eating. Although a friend of a victim of anorexia or bulimia can feel frustrated, angry, scared, or even...

...Eating Disorders
Shannon Wulf
2/9/14
Lana Coxton
Eating disorders are conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health. Bulimia nervosa is a disorder characterized by binge eating and purging. Purging can include self-induced vomiting, over-exercising, and the usage of diuretics, enemas, and laxatives. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by extreme food restriction to the point of self-starvation and excessive weight loss. There are many causes of eating disorders, including biological, psychological and/or environmental abnormalities. Many people with eating disorders suffer also from body dysmorphic disorder, altering the way a person sees himself or herself. There are also many other possibilities such as environmental, social and interpersonal issues that could promote and sustain these illnesses. Also, the media are oftentimes blamed for the rise in the incidence of eating disorders due to the fact that media images of idealized slim physical shape of people such as models and celebrities motivate or even force people to attempt to achieve slimness themselves. The media are accused of distorting reality, in the sense that people portrayed in the media are either naturally thin and thus unrepresentative of normality or unnaturally thin by forcing their bodies to look like the ideal image by putting excessive pressure on themselves to look a certain...

...Body Fat and Eating Disorders
5/18/2014
Obesity is a growing epidemic in the United States. Eating disorders are also an epidemic in the United States. Obesity and eating disorders can cause health problems in a person. There are many factors that influence the obesity epidemic.
Body composition can be described as the proportions of lean tissue and fat that makes up the body. There are risks with having too much body fat. The risks include raising the risk of developing a health issue. High blood pressure, heart disease and sleep disorders are all illnesses a person can have occur because of excess body fat. Diabetes, respiratory problems, and the increased chance of cancer are linked to obesity. Gallbladder issues, arthritis, and menstrual issues are also a concern of those who are obese. An obese person is also at risk infection, poor healing, and surgical complications. The more body fat a person has the greater the health risk is. The longer a person has the excess body fat the risks are greater. A person who gain weight excessively as a child and remains gaining weight also face great health risks. Obesity is a growing problem in the United States and is causing health care expenses to rise as the number of obese people rise (Grosvenor & Smolin, 2012).
Several factors influence the obesity epidemic in the United States. The first factor is Americans are eating more and burning fewer calories. Appetites are stimulated by smells and the......

...EATING DISORDER
Carol Tripp
BEH/225
August 23, 2014
Christina Ashley
Eating disorder is a mental illness that causes serious disturbances in a person’s everyday diet. It can manifest as eating extremely small amounts of food or severely overeating. The condition may begin as easy as just eating too little or too much, but the obsession with eating food overtakes the life of a person mind leading to severe damage. Eating disorders are complex diseases and not just conditions that can be treated with willpower, all eating disorders are all primary mental health diseases. The conditions are chronic with progression both identifiable and predictable; they also can be caused by a mix of sociological, psychological, and genetic factors. Eating disorders fall into three categories.
*TYPES OF EATING DISORDERS:
**Anorexia Nervosa – a eating disorder by an intake fear of gaining weight, a distorted self-image, a persistent unwillingness to eat or extremely low body weight, and is often accompanied by self-induced vomiting or excessive exercise.
**Bulimia Nervosa – is a eating disorder by episodes of secretive excessive eating followed by inappropriate methods of weight control.
**Binge-Eating - is a serious eating disorder in which you frequently consume unusually large amount of food.
Culture has been identified as one of the etiological factors leading to the development of eating disorders. Rates of these disorders appear to vary among different cultures and......

...Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia
Abby looks at herself in the mirror, she turns around and takes a good look at herself, she is thinking “How can I be so fat and everyone else is so skinny?” To top it off Abby is a high school student everyday her situation gets worse and worse. Not only does she feel guilty when she eats, but she also purges it up after she’s done eating. This can be the beginning of an eating disorder called Bulimia Nervosa. Many teens around this age feel insecure about their changing bodies because our society is obsessed with being thin which makes teens want to be thin so they can begin to feel loved and valued. Many times it can also be that they want to look like their favorite actor but the ones who think that need to realize that every individual is different, we all have our different style and taste which makes us have our own unique look. Eating disorders are amongst the most common psychiatric syndromes, this leads to impatient hospitalization and suicide attempts for morality. According to recent studies both anorexia and bulimia are most common in the United States. This research paper will point out the importance of eating disorders: bulimia and anorexia, how the theory “Social comparison” can be used for this topic when comparing the US to other countries that are the opposite of bulimia and anorexia such as
force-feeding and will also state how different it is in a little town in Africa called Mauritania and a......

...Analysis of Eating Disorders
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]
Analysis of Eating Disorders
Introduction
Eating disorders are fairly common these days because the subjects are so overly concerned about their shape and size of the body that they tend to sacrifice their health in trying to make themselves look good. Furthermore, the societal requirements and benchmarks of appearances and the needs to be accepted also trigger the negative thoughts that lead to such disorders.
This paper talks about the different types of eating disorders. It also mentions the medical and behavioral symptoms that the subjects experience and the medical problems that they may result to suffer as a consequence of the behaviors which result from such disorders. Furthermore, it also talks about the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It also discusses the efficiency of CBT; the techniques used by it to counter the problems of the subjects and also mention the advantages and disadvantages of using this method of therapy.
Eating disorder:
With the growing influence of social media and the trends of selfies, people are becoming increasingly concerned about their physical appearances. The body weight has always been a major concern of women but with the increased exposure is a relevant reason for the increased concern. Furthermore, the concept of fast food is also leading to certain habits that may cause eating disorders. The concept where the simple act of eating can lead to......

...In 2014 I sat in on a group therapy session to support one of my close friends that was struggling with anorexia. Hearing everyone’s stories really hit home. After that day I wanted to learn more about eating disorders and how they are made and how they affect different people in different ways. Too many young people commit suicide or die from eating disorders. My goal is for everyone to know to basic keys signs and to know a good simple explanation of each disease.
Eating disorders having been a growing concern with young people and teenagers. Our everyday society can be to blame for that also. Body image is a very sensitive subject to both boys and girls. You cannot escape it, television, magazines, billboards and the Internet in general. You follow models and famous people on Instagram and twitter and see their lives everyday. “I want to look like that” “She is perfect” both of these maxims can hurt a self-esteem and how you look at yourself in the mirror. Wanted to change your body can be a cause of anorexia and bulimia. An eating disorder is a mental illness. Many peers and adults do not even see it happening. For another example, bullying in school can push kids over the edge. Many girls and boys are going through puberty and their body is changing. Just because they are different than other they get made fun of. Those mean words get stuck in those heads of the bullied. They will do whatever they can to change so they will be considered normal. Skipping meals or......

...Eating Disorders
Introduction to Behavioral Science
BEH/225
Eating Disorders
The theory of drive reduction was first proposed by Psychologist Clark Hull. His theory was based on the idea that learning only occurred if there was a physiological urge or tension that impelled the individual to behave in a manner which would satisfy the related physiological need. Unfortunately, his theory does not apply to diseases such as anorexia or bulimia.
The primary drive of hunger is controlled by our brain, specifically an area known as the hypothalamus; which regulates many aspects of motivation and emotion especially hunger, thirst and sexual behavior (Coon and Mitterer 2013). With our primary hunger being controlled by our brain, it is more than likely that it is linked to a state of equilibrium which is also known as a “set point”. Our set point is the weight that we choose to maintain our bodies, and are making no effort to gain or lose weight. With that said our body tries to find a balance in regards to our food intake. Despite the amount of calories that an obese person has taken in one day, they may still feel hungry because their settling point might be too low and the reason for that is individuals train their bodies to eat a certain amount of food which than sets their “set point”.
Those individuals that suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia are typically unhappy with bodies, have low self-esteem and have such a distorted view of them. Eating......

...The Globalization of Eating Disorders
Before the 20th century, scientist thought that the malnutrition problems would only happened in the developing nations from the starvations. However, the malnutrition problems surprisingly appeareces in the new millennium in both developing and developed countries due to eating disorders and body image disturbances. Many researchers assume that the eating disorders in the modern society include psychological troubles such as self-critical thoughts and emotions, which lead individuals to a pessimistic mood. From the mentioned points above, I believe that western culture leads women’s eating disorders through media and personal relationships with westerners.
I found specific researchers and their studies to support and explain my possition: a essay, entitled “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” written by Susan Bordo from Gilbert H. Muller’s book The New Worlds Reader, an research article published in the magazine International Journal Of Eating Disorders entitled “Boday Image and Eating Disturbance Among South Asian-American Women: The Role of Racial Teasing”, by Dana Sahi Iyer and Nick Haslam, and the seventh chapter, entitled “Sociocultural Influences: The Impact of Western Culture on Eating and Body Image Disturbances”, of the book Too Fat or Too Thin: A Reference Guide to Eating Diorders by Cynthia R Kalodner. During reading three resources, I come up with question how western culture impacts eating disorders due to the......

...Eating Disorders 2
Eating Disorders:
It’s Affect on adolescents
For many years now, eating disorders have affected many people in our society. Young people being the main target because of the publics’ idea of a person’s size and weight. In our world, society has made people think that people have to look a certain way to fit in. Most women are judge by their appearance and some still dream of the perfect measurement 90-60-90. This disorder affects both females and males, but the female population being the most talked about. Besides the eating disorders knowing that they lose weight or stop weight gain, they don’t knowledge about what the effects are. Researchers have come together to let the truth about eating disorders and what are their health complications. Some of the questions that everyone should have the answers to are:
1.What are the main points of having an eating disorder?
2.What are the medical complications?
3.Who can be at risk?
4.What are the outcomes of an eating disorder treatment right after discharge and about three months later?
Journal of adolescent health, nutrition research and eating behaviors have dedicated their time to explain all the factors so they can be accessible to the public. The information is out there to prevent people from suffering of these disorders in the future. As a young woman I find that this topic is to be known about, so that way people know what they are about to deal with to look like some magazine...

...Eating Disorders Research Paper
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Eating disorders are sweeping this country and are rampant on junior high, high school, and college campuses. These disorders are often referred to as the Deadly Diet, but are often known by their more popular names: anorexia or bulimia. They affect more than 20% of females between the age of thirteen and forty. It is very rare for a young female not to know of someone with an eating disorder. Statistics show that at least one in five young women have a serious problem with eating and weight (Bruch, 25).
The Deadly Diet appears to be a mostly female problem. Eating disorders are most common in the middle to upper middle class families. Currently, the incidence is much lower in females from the "blue collar" families. The Deadly Diet can begin anywhere from the ages of ten to thirty. The peak age for the beginning of the Deadly Diet in females is eleven to fifteen; the peak for males is between fifteen and eighteen (Bauer, 89).
Most of the information on the Deadly Diet says that it is a problem of teenage girls, but as clinics have found, most of the people who come to get therapy are in their twenties and thirties. This may be because younger people are less likely to seek professional help. Most often it is the parent who brings the patient for help. Adults who have left home and had to deal with managing their lives usually tend to realize more clearly the need to seek help and make changes.
Everywhere one looks......

...Eating Disorders
When people think of disorders the usually tend to think of mental or physical disorders, but eating disorders go right along with these disorders also. Eating disorders are characterized by a compulsive fixation with food, body weight, or self-image. This disorder is becoming more and more prevalent in the United States partially due to the media’s portrayal of what might be considered attractive. But the images of unrealistic “skinny” women that is shown on television, in magazines and across the Internet is only a small part of the contributing factors to eating disorders. Other contributing factors include “…low self-esteem, depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation” (Sue, Sue & Sue, 2009, p.445). Eating disorders not only affect adolescents but adults also. Both men a and women suffer from eating disorders, however women and girls are more likely to have a negative self image and engage in disordered eating patterns. Even though the population of the United States is becoming heavier, women are increasingly putting an emphasis on being thinner. Men also affected by distorted eating patterns, however with male adolescents and college-aged boys weight dissatisfaction revolves around being heavier and more muscular.
When a person has a distorted eating pattern it could lead to other serious disorders like bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, or binge eating. Anorexia nervosa is an “eating disorder characterized by low body weight, an intense......